Cable televisions systems receive satellite signals from which television signals are obtained for transmission to system subscribers. Cable television systems typically include a headend for receiving and demodulating the satellite signals to baseband, then transmitting the signals via communication media to subscriber equipment that tunes into television channels for display to the subscriber. The signals to the subscriber can be transmitted, for instance, over coaxial cables, fiber optic cables, or a combination of the two, and taps situated along the communication media split off the signals to provide subscriber drops. Signals to a subscriber can be provided directly to a cable-ready television, a cable-ready video cassette recorder (VCR), or a set top terminal connected to a television or other display device, such as a computer.
Many cable television systems provide television program information to subscriber equipment so that the subscriber can view the program information on the television itself. This program information is typically organized for presentation purposes into a program guide format that presents the program information by time and channel. The program guide can, for instance, automatically scroll through the available television channels to present the program information, such as name and description, at the current time.
With the advent of "browsers" for use in cable television systems, subscribers can linearly scan program information by time and channel while viewing the tuned channel. In systems, such as analog systems, that offer a limited number of cable television channels, these browsers permit the subscriber to easily scan the available programs one-by-one in order of channel number. However, many digital systems can provide hundreds or even thousands of channels. In such systems, scanning program information by channel number can require hundreds of keystrokes by the subscriber and can consume a tremendous amount of time. Furthermore, locating a particular channel can be quite difficult if the subscriber does not already know the channel number of the channel for which he or she is searching.
Thus, what is needed is an improved way to view and scan program information by channel in a cable television system that provides a large number of available channels.